Tension device.



E. J. LIPPS.

TENSION DEVICE.

APPLICATION FILED MAR. 2|. I9I6.

Patented Dec. 5, 1916.

A IIIII 17j/ESS:

ElVIORY J'. LIPPS, OF FOUNTAIN HIIJL BOROUGH, PENNSYLVANIA.

TEN-SION DEVICE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Dec. 5, 1916.

Application filed March 21, 1916. Serial No. 85,554.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, EMORY J. Lirrs, a citizen of the United States, residing at the borough of Fountain Hill, in the county of Lehigh and State of Pennsylvania, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Tension Devices, of which the following is a specification.

In an application of Lloyd H. Lipps and myself Serial No. 85,552 we have disclosed a method whereby silk or other threads, filaments, strands and the like, after receiving each the so-called irst-time twist, may be joined to each other in a novel wrapping of one around the other after or during the doubling operation, so that when they are to be subjected to the so-called second-time twisting or spinning operation they may be withdrawn, from the spool or bobbin on which they have been wound, over one end of such spool or bobbin, e'. e., endwise thereof, without the use of a flier to keep them together, with the obvious consequence that the spinning operation can proceed at a much higher rate of speed and with much less likelihood of breakage than is possible with the use of fliers, which both greatly retard the delivery of the material from the supply spool and have a considerable abrasive action on the material.

My present invention relates to the spinning or twisting of threads and the like, hereinafter termed threads, and has been conceived with special reference to the spinning or twisting of the material produced by the method above indicated, the object being to provide means which will permit the material, in the spinning or twisting, to be withdrawn from the supply spool or bobbin at however great speed without undue breakage and subject to as nearly uniform tension as is possible, especially in respect to differences in resistance to delivery of the material incident to the point of delivery being at times immediately adjacent and at others more or less remote from that head of such spool or bobbin which adjoins the receivingl bobbin or other draft medium; but the invention may be applied in any spinning or twisting operation, whether the material consist of one or more threads. My invention consists in a thread resistance device arranged in the line of draft of the thread and formed with a substantially circular periphery extending around the axis rof and being somewhat greater in diameter than the adjacent end of the package, such periphery being of generally tapering form with the taper developed or projecting opposite to the direction of draft and affording a thread resistance medium which, by being composed for at least a part of its width of a band of pile fabric, for example, involves a series of thread obstructions extending circumferentially thereof. The purpose of tapering the periphery of the device is to obtain a compensation for the varying nature of the resistance to such delivery caused, as already said, by the delivery point shifting to and from the end of the package adjoining the, draft medium, so that the tension will remain substantially constant throughout the delivery of the thread from end to end of the package. v

Having made a. flier no longer necessary in the second time spinning or twisting operation (by the wrapping of the doubled strands around each other disclosed in my other application above mentioned) as a means to keep the strands together during the second-time twisting or spinning operation, by the present invention I make the flier unnecessary as a tension device; thus the flier maybe discarded altogether, which is an immense advantage in many ways, my device, moreover, giving results as a tension controlling medium that are in every way superior to those involved in the use of a flier.

Proceeding, now, to a detailed description of the invention, and referring to the ac-v companying drawings, in which- Figure 1 shows in front elevation the principal elements of one unit of a second-time spinning or twisting machine and of my tension device in operative position on the supply spool; Fig. 2 shows the supply spool in side elevation and the tension device in section on a larger scale; and Fig. 3 is a plan of the tension device, partly in section.

a is the supply spool on which the thread to be spun is wound in coils back and forth from one head a to the other a of the spool, the same being suitably supported on, to rotate with, the spindle Y); c is the rotary receiving or draft spool, suitably supported on the driving drum o; and CZ and c means to guide the thread as it passes from spool a to spool 0, the guide Z being fixed and guide c reciprocatino` laterally to traverse the thread with reference to spool c.

On the spool a I place my improved tension device. This is in the present instance shown as a cap f, composed, say, of fiber, having a depending flange g fitting about the upper head a. of the spool, the cap and its flange being' both circular in plan; the cap has a central hole t which fits rather' snugly the spindle, but this is not material so long as in some way the cap is adapted to rotate with the spool.

Around the periphery of the cap is placed the fibrous resistance medium j, in the illustrated form extending continuously thereof, and preferably consisting of a strip or band of some pile fabric, such as plush, having the pile exposed or facing outward. Fibrous material serves well for the resistance medium because it discourages any tendency of the thread to track at one point and thus form a nick or cut in it and opposes obstruction to the wiping of the thread around the cap that is constant in character: while plush or the like pile fabric is in view of these considerations perhaps the best fibrous material to employ, I do not regard it as indispensable. Preferably, the strip or band constituting the fibrous material is somewhat less in width than the flange itself, leaving hard smooth portions 7c 7c immediately above and below such band, which assume the pressure of the thread due to its tendency to straighten out under the draft thereon, so that the band serves practically only as a means to retard the movement of the thread around the flange. To this end it is preferable that the band or strip be set in a groove Z formed continuously in the periphery of the flange.

I form the flange as shown in Figs. l and 2, to wit, with a taper which is developed downward, z. e., opposite to the direction of draft on the thread. This has the very important effect that, while the resistance medium j serves to keep the tension uniform throughout the delivery of any particular coil of the thread, the taper preserves the tension substantially the same whether the point of actual delivery be near or remote from` the upper head a of the spool a, it being well known that the farther the delivery point is from the head a in drawing 01T the thread endwise of the spool the greater is the resistance opposed thereto, because of the frictional resistance incident to the thread wrapping around the main body of thread wound on the spool (as indicated at m, Fig. 2) being always greater than that incident to its slipping around simply the hard smooth periphery, as of its upper head a. Thus, for illustration, when the primary resistance (i. e., the resistance just indicated as varying according to the proximity of the delivery point to he upper head of the spool) is greatest, the resistance opposed by mytension device is least, because the thread encounters little if any of the resistance medium y', as indicated by the solid line at n; and when the primary resistance would otherwise be the least, the resistance then opposed to the thread by my device is greatest, the thread then being opposed by the whole width of the resistance medium j and pressing into it to the limit permitted by the hard smooth portions c 7c of the caps periphery, as indicated by the dotted line 0. There is thus afforded compensation for the fluctuations in the primary resistance which in practice produces a tension that is practically invariable during the delivery back and forth from one end to the other of the package. The fibers or filaments of the pile of the band of fabric j offer, it will be understood, a series of obstructions (yielding in the present case) to the thread as it plays around the device in contact with such fibers or filaments.

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is l. In combination, means to support a wound package while the thread is withdrawn therefrom longitudinally of the axis of winding, and a thread resistance device having' a fibrous thread-contact surface extending around and facing away from said axis and tapering oppositely to the direction of draft on the thread.

2. In combination, means to support a wound package while the thread is withdrawn therefrom longitudinally of the axis of winding, and a thread resistance device having a thread-contact surface extending around and facing away from said axis and tapering oppositely to the direction of draft on the thread, a part of said surface being fibrous and another part thereof hard.

3. In combination, means to support a wound package while the thread is withdrawn vtherefrom longitudinally of the axis of winding, and a thread resistance device having a thread-contact surface extending around and facing away from said axis and tapering oppositely to the direction of draft on the thread, a part of said surface being pile-like and another part thereof hard.

4. In combination, means to support a wound package while the thread is withdrawn therefrom longitudinally of the axis of winding, and a thread resistance device having a thread-contact surface extending around and facing away from said axis and tapering' oppositely to the direction of draft on the thread, a part of said surface being pile-like and other parts thereof both sides of the pile-like part hard.

5. In combination, means to support in an upright position a wound package having its coils progressing up and down, means to withdraw the thread upwardly from the package substantially longitudinally of the latter, and a removable thread 'resistance device having a pile-like thread- 'contact surface extending around and facing away from the package axis and receiving the contact of the part of the thread being withdrawn, said surface being tapered oppositely to the direction of draft on the thread.

6. In combination, means to support in an upright position a wound package having its coils progressing up and down, means to withdraw the thread upwardly from the package substantially longitudinally of the latter, and a removable thread resistance device having a thread-contact surface extending around and facing away from the package axis and receiving the Contact of the part of the thread being withdrawn, said surface being tapered oppositely to the direction 0f draft on the thread, and said surface being in one horizontal plane pile-like and in another hard.

7. In combination, means to support a wound package while the thread is withdrawn therefrom longitudinally of the axis of winding, and a thread resistance medium extending around and facing away from said axis and tapering oppositely to the direction of draft on the thread, and including a band of thread obstructing material extending circumferentially thereof.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature.

EMORY J. LIPPS.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for ve cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D C. 

